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Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

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Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#101

Post by tzs »

penagwin wrote: post #87
tzs wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If kids are a concern, what about the problem of DST in winter in northern areas meaning kids go to school in the dark? For example I see kids walking to school at around 7:15 AM (6th-8th grade and high school) and around 8:30 AM (K-5th grade). This is at latitude ~47.7° N (same latitude as the city that is part of your name, in fact). Here is what various DST options would do in terms of kids going to school before…

I'm not sure what you mean, here in Michigan a large chunk of the school year (maybe 50% ?) the highschool/middleschoolers go to school in the dark. It usually dark for another hour or more.

It's the same here. The middle/high school kids here are in the dark for about 5 months. Going to permanent DST would not change anything for them. Dropping DST completely would reduce that to about 3 months. See the third column in my table for the details. The rows are when they go in the dark (1) if we got rid of DST completely, (2) if we keep it as it is, and (3) if we went to permanent DST.

It's elementary school kids that it would make a big difference with. Under the current system here they are always going to school after sunrise. If we went to permanent DST, they would be going in the dark for about 2.5 months.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#102

Post by racer-v »

rocqua wrote: post #82
racer-v wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Noon should be the moment when the sun is at its highest altitude in the sky, or a close approximation thereof.

I think the sunrise is a better fixture socially, and maybe the sunset is a better fixture biologically. Noon is just an easy to measure compromise for the above two. Social life and timing mostly revolves around how early you get up. "Its late" kind of means "I am behind schedule to get enough sleep before waking up". Biologically, we are programmed around sunlight. Whilst our mornings aren't really controlled by th…

I agree, but sunrise and sunset have the disadvantage of not being fixed (unless you live on the equator).

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#103

Post by mkempe »

_raoulcousins wrote: post #22

Over here in Seattle sunset is at 4:19 in winter. Maybe we need to switch to some other time zone.

Two things to say: a) come spend winter in Sweden... in Lapland the sun does not set at all in June and there is darkness around the clock in January; Stockholm is not that far up North, so we get a few hours of daylight in mid-December; and b) if lack of daylight in the winter is such an issue, maybe move to Southern California, or somewhere even closer to the equator.

Three things, actually :-) c) consider spending your winter months in the Southern Hemisphere. Some animals migrate vast distances twice a year.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#104

Post by thaumasiotes »

tzs wrote: post #81

One of the main purported benefits of DST is that it in effect moves some of the extra sunlight from the longer days of summer from the morning to the evening, where most of us are in a better position to use it. That's because without DST as the day lengthens the extra daylight is split evenly between morning and evening. But WHY does it split evenly? It's because we historically use noon as our reference. We think…

> Suppose that instead we had historically used sunrise as our reference. By definition, then, sunrise would be 8 AM every day.

Where'd you get this? Reference sunrise is 6 AM, halfway between midnight (the middle of the night) and noon (the middle of the day).

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#105

Post by Swizec »

Mz wrote: post #90
tzs wrote: post #81

One of the main purported benefits of DST is that it in effect moves some of the extra sunlight from the longer days of summer from the morning to the evening, where most of us are in a better position to use it. That's because without DST as the day lengthens the extra daylight is split evenly between morning and evening. But WHY does it split evenly? It's because we historically use noon as our reference. We think…

There is one flaw with your theory here: Historically, noon was defined locally by the sun being directly overhead. All time was local time. Then we invented trains and railroads and you couldn't schedule anything with such a system. Thus was born standardized time zones where it is the same time across large swaths of land. Noon is no longer strictly correlated to the sun being directly overhead. I think there are a…

> (as long as I meet deadlines).

But how do you meet deadlines if you can't agree on what time it is?

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#106

Post by Mz »

Swizec wrote: post #105
Mz wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one flaw with your theory here: Historically, noon was defined locally by the sun being directly overhead. All time was local time. Then we invented trains and railroads and you couldn't schedule anything with such a system. Thus was born standardized time zones where it is the same time across large swaths of land. Noon is no longer strictly correlated to the sun being directly overhead. I think there are a…

> (as long as I meet deadlines). But how do you meet deadlines if you can't agree on what time it is?

My remarks in no way suggest we do away with standardized time zones. So, I don't have any idea how you are making that leap.

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#107

Post by kobeya »

tzs wrote: post #81

One of the main purported benefits of DST is that it in effect moves some of the extra sunlight from the longer days of summer from the morning to the evening, where most of us are in a better position to use it. That's because without DST as the day lengthens the extra daylight is split evenly between morning and evening. But WHY does it split evenly? It's because we historically use noon as our reference. We think…

> Suppose that instead we had historically used sunrise as our reference.

No need to suppose. That’s how many cultures have marked the day. That’s why Jewish sabbath is sunset to sunset.

However your plan does suffer one drawback—time zones would need to change with latitude too. And what about the polar regions?

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#108

Post by thaumasiotes »

Koshkin wrote: post #83
shmerl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing here. I use 24 hour system anywhere I can. Converting it isn't an effort for me. But I wish everyone around would use it.

Well, in English, you can't say "16 o'clock", can you? You can only say "sixteen hundred hours" (which sounds terrible, if you ask me).

> Well, in English, you can't say "16 o'clock", can you? You can only say "sixteen hundred hours"

What's stopping you?

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#109

Post by rconti »

Koshkin wrote: post #83
shmerl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing here. I use 24 hour system anywhere I can. Converting it isn't an effort for me. But I wish everyone around would use it.

Well, in English, you can't say "16 o'clock", can you? You can only say "sixteen hundred hours" (which sounds terrible, if you ask me).

how about "16 hours" or "1600"

Re: Massachusetts is considering leaving the Eastern Time Zone

#110

Post by rconti »

blt wrote: post #84
mintplant wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched my own "native" time format to 24 hours years ago, in my head and on all my personal devices. Now I'm able to convert between the two formats effortlessly, and doing mental math on times is easier when I don't have to mix in a bunch of modulo-12 operations. (I live in the US.)

How long did it take you to switch? I've had my phone in 24-hour mode since May. I can convert without thought now, but I still think in 12-hour time internally.

Good luck. I've been using a 24 hour clock on every single device in my control for likely 30 years now and I still think in 12 hour time. Hell, I even spent ages trying to find a 24 hour bedroom clock before I finally found one on a ham radio site. But I still have to stop myself doing 12-hour time math, do the math in 24 hour, and STILL manage to screw it up.

I don't know why, but the 12 hour clock is just so ingrained that I can't stop thinking that way. The good news is, the conversion is trivial for me, but its just strange how it never 'took' in my head.

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